The Berkshires' Independent Alternative Newsthing

Stranger in a Strange Land: Akram Khan and XENOS

Akram Khan doesn’t just perform his dances; he lives them. In XENOS, which played to a packed audience on February 21 at the Williams College ’62 Center for Theatre and Dance, he isn’t just a formidable dancer, but also a skilled actor adept at storytelling through explosive movement, small gestures, and poignant moments of stillness.

The show, presented in collaboration with Jacob’s Pillow, marks a stop on Khan’s farewell tour as a solo dancer—at least in such extensive, immersive works; at 44, the British artist (of Bangladeshi descent) is shifting his focus to choreography and production.

And what a way to go out. XENOS, like many of Khan’s creations, centers around big themes told through smaller moments in time: in this case, the ravages of war and our loss of humanity, as seen through the lens of an Indian soldier forced into combat under the British flag in World War I.

Perhaps even more than this artistic statement, XENOS is a showcase for Khan’s inimitable style. From the moment he stumbles onto the stage, a prisoner deposited in an unknown place, he draws from both modern dance and classical Indian dance traditions, especially Kathak. The result—a blend of more familiar Western movement with rhythmic stomping, traveling steps, sharp accents, the incorporation of mudras (small hand gestures), and plenty of chukras (impossibly rapid turns on nearly flat feet)—is dynamic, arresting, sometimes dizzying, and always beautiful.

At times it’s also punishing, as Khan tosses himself onto
breakaway props, rolls full-length down a hill of battle, and is dragged or
suspended by ropes. As he, a reluctant participant in someone else’s fight,
gets deeper into the war, his movement becomes more primal, a man scrabbling
for anything that resembles life as he knows it. It’s a fascinating examination
of the push and pull between wanting to survive and wanting to retain our
dignity and humanity, and failing to do either particularly well.

The set and score, by Mirella Weingarten and Vincenzo
Lamagna, respectively, are richly atmospheric and brilliantly support Khan’s
storytelling. The staging is sparse, with a handful of props and a rope-covered
slope at the back that turns into a combat site; at one point, it even takes on
an otherworldly, Mars-like feel as Khan’s isolation grows. The sound shifts
between classical Indian drumming and vocals, dissonant modern strings and
woodwinds, and snippets of spoken word that heighten the feeling of desperation
and longing, especially when a disembodied voice begins to recite the names of
lost Indian soldiers.

As the show comes to a close, with a lone searchlight
shining over a storm of pinecones that rain down the hill past Khan, the
audience is not left with a feeling of hope per se, but a wish for our
protagonist—and, by extension, all of us—to persist, to connect, to free ourselves
from pain and struggle.

Robin Catalano believes in the power of storytelling to connect communities and cultures. She’s applied her creative approach to writing for magazines, books, blogs, websites, and a wide variety of marketing projects, and has published more than 75 articles and 1,000+ blog posts. As an editor, she has worked on more than 350 books for publishers including Penguin Random House, Workman, and Simon & Schuster. She has also served as a book coach for independent authors, helping them take their ideas from concept to print. An avid traveler and travel writer, Robin lives, reads, and writes voraciously in upstate NY.

While making your way through Hudson Valley’s pastoral countryside, it is easy…

About

The Greylock Glass is the ONLY independent alternative newsthing in Western Mass. We write articles, reviews, and opinion pieces. We do podcasts. We stream. We do video. Sometimes we do streaming video. We even do live events. You don’t have to bow down before our greatness. But if you do, would you mind looking under the couch? I think I lost a cheeze ball under there.

You tipped that bitchy barista a buck to screw up your latte this morning. Again.